The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for DNA amplification which is an essential step in biological research needs a large quantity of purified nucleic acids. This has led to limitations in the manual isolation of isolating biological substances or nucleic acids in university and corporate research labs. In order to overcome such limitations, automated apparatus for extracting biological substances or nucleic acids from biological specimens have been produced and used.
The conventional methods for nucleic acid extraction include a method of separating nucleic acids absorbed on a magnet using magnetic beads, a method of eluting a solution with a column to introduce air into the column and push the solution out, a method of eluting a solution through a centrifugal separation of the column, etc.
The automated equipment for nucleic acid extraction using the above-mentioned conventional methods is, however, problematic in terms of its relatively great bulkiness and excessively long processing time to process a large quantity of the specimens. Further, the specimens may cause contamination in the course of processing the specimens to reduce the processing efficiency and causing inconvenience to the user.
Accordingly, there is a demand for nucleic acid extraction apparatus and an operation method thereof that can solve these problems with the prior art.